Trump to undo clean-power plan
Order to take aim at Obama measure to curb global warming
President Donald Trump in the coming days will sign an executive order that unravels his predecessor’s plan to curb global warming, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Sunday.
EPA chief Scott Pruitt said the executive order to be signed Tuesday will undo former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, an environmental regulation that restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants. The 2015 rule has been on hold since last year while a federal appeals court considers a challenge by coal-friendly Republican-led states and more than 100 companies.
Support from coal miners helped propel Trump to victory by aiding wins in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other states that have seen jobs tied to the fossil-fuel decline. Trump has repeatedly promised to put miners back to work.
The change is not expected to return coal to its earlier dominance in electricity production, but the fossil fuel may see moderate growth as a result, according to projections from the Energy Information Administration. Use of natural gas by power plants also could decrease.
Speaking on ABC’s This Week, Pruitt said Tuesday’s order will be followed by actions to “make sure that whatever steps we take in the future will be pro-growth, pro-environment but within the framework of the Clean Air Act.” He said it will be legal and is “an effort to undo the unlawful approach the previous administration engaged in and do it right going forward.”
He added that Trump’s intention is to restore coal-mining jobs and reduce the cost of electricity.
Under Obama, the EPA set a goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent below 2005 levels by the year 2030, and its Clean Power Plan dictated specific targets for states to reach.
Opponents of the rule argue that the EPA overstepped its regulatory authority under the Clean Air Act by giving states broad carbon-cutting mandates instead of imposing specific requirements on individual facilities.
Even before he became EPA administrator, Pruitt was fighting the Clean Power Plan. As the state’s attorney general, he had Oklahoma join more than two dozen other states, plus electric utilities, labor unions, business groups and coal miners, in challenging the rule. An array of environmental groups, public health advocates, renewable-energy developers, large corporations and 18 other states defended the initiative.
The U.S. Court of Appeals heard arguments on the challenge last September but hasn’t ruled. The Trump administration can file a motion to hold the matter in abeyance as a way to begin rule-making aimed at rescinding the measure administratively. Environmental activists who are already defending the rule in court have vowed to fight such a move.
Supporters of Obama’s plan, including some Democratic-led states and environmental groups, argue that it would spur thousands of clean-energy jobs and help the U.S. meet ambitious goals to reduce carbon pollution set by an international agreement reached in Paris in late 2015.
Pruitt on Sunday called the Paris climate accord a “bad deal” because he said it went too easy on China and India, who like the U.S. are among the world’s leading producers of carbon dioxide.
“So we’ve penalized ourselves through lost jobs while China and India didn’t take steps to address the issue internationally. So Paris was just a bad deal, in my estimation,” he said.
Information for this article was contributed by staff members of The Associated Press and by Jennifer A. Dlouhy of Bloomberg News.